Friday, March 14, 2008

Pete B. Wins Again

Pete Basinger has likely won more endurance (100 miles and up) snow bike races than anyone in the world (maybe Rocky R., Mike C., or John S. has won more?). Not bad considering that Pete's still got about 15 years ahead of him in which his ultra-endurance will continue to increase!

I was pretty shocked when only 36% of people who responded to my last poll figured he would be the first to Nome. No disrespect to Jay, Carl, or Rocky but in my mind Pete's likelihood of being the first to Nome was more like 60 or 70%.

Anyhow, as most of you have probably heard by now he made it into Nome last night as the top finisher of the "full length" Iditarod Invitational.

A pretty amazing race for Pete that included a 12 hour stop in Skwentna to wait for a new pedal to be flown in; a 12 hour stop in Nikolai to recover from a stomach illness that he came down with out on the trail; a stretch in the middle of the race that involved so much pushing that it took him 6.5 days to go just over 250 miles; after this awful stretch of pushing on soft trail he decided to drop out of the race only to change his mind several hours later and head back out on the trail; and then he made an amazing push at the end, covering the last 220 miles of trail in just under 50 hours! When it was all said and done he came up just one day away from breaking the race record for the northern route to Nome! Pretty amazing stuff. Congratulations Pete. Also congratulations to Carl H. and Rok K. who have both rolled into Nome today. Also best wishes to those still out on the trail - Bill M., Kathi M., Tim H., and Jose D.

Now that my last poll has been decided I've thrown a new one up (just for you Nykole). I was thinking about my races from last season while I was running today and trying to decide in my mind which one I felt was my best race, or at the very least which one I learned the most things that I'll be able to use in my races coming up this year. I couldn't come up with a definite answer. In some ways I think each race I did last year was my "best" performance in it's own way, but then I got thinking that it would be interesting to see how other people perceive my races and compare this to the perceptions that I have in my mind. If you are really bored and you want to make a very in depth vote you can check out my race reports from each race:

3 comments:

Geoff,I don't quite know how you define "last season," but I hope you include your excellent performance in the recent Iditarod Invitational. If you did include it, then that would be the one I would vote for. The reason I would vote for that one is because I suspect you learned more from and had more personal growth in the Iditarod Invitational than all the other races combined. Otherwise, it is probably a draw among the rest. When everything conspires to allow new records to be set that is great, but records are perennially broken. The records are temporary; whereas the personal growth is permanent. Good luck in the GDR!